Biographical Sketch

Robert Bennet Forbes was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, on 18 September 1804, the son of Ralph Bennet and Margaret (Perkins) Forbes. He spent three years at Milton Academy and furthered his education in France for another year. At the age of 13, he sailed on the first of several voyages to China under the command of his uncles, James and Thomas H. Perkins, who were China Trade merchants. He was promoted to an officer at the age of sixteen. In 1824, he commanded his first ship on a three-year voyage around the world, and he was captain of his own ship by the age of 21.

Forbes was in China from 1830-1832. In 1830, his uncles' firm, J. and T. H. Perkins and Sons, merged with Russell and Company to become the largest American merchant firm in China. Upon his return to Boston on 20 January 1834, he married Rose Greene Smith and prospered as the consignee of China cargoes. Forbes returned to China in 1839 as head of Russell and Company on the ship Canton Packet, the first and last ship to travel directly from China to New Orleans. He arrived in time to play a role in the beginning of the Opium War. Forbes returned to China for the last time in 1849, where he stayed until 1851. While there, he continued to maintain an interest in Russell and Company, and he held the seat of the Consulate of the United States and the Vice-Consulate of France.

In 1847, Forbes was appointed by the New England Committee for the Relief of Ireland and Scotland (NECRIS) to command a mission to Ireland to relieve the victims of famine. He was lent a ship, the U.S.S. Jamestown, for that purpose. It was the first ship-of-war ever lent to a private citizen by Congress for a foreign voyage.

When Forbes returned from China in 1840, he entered into a life-long interest in shipbuilding. He launched the Edith in 1845, the first American steamer to go to British India. After his return from China in 1851, Forbes returned to shipbuilding. He was part owner or supervisor on the construction of over 68 ships. He invented the "Forbes rig" for sailing vessels. In 1844-1845, he was the principal owner of three steamers, the Midas and the Edith, pioneers in Chinese and Indian waters, and the Massachusetts, a transatlantic packet.

Late in 1858, Forbes travelled to South America in order to bring a small steamer to a friend conducting a survey expedition there. To transport the steamer, Forbes traveled on the Roy Nankin, a larger ship, and put the steamer on its deck.

During the Civil War, he organized a Coast Guard unit for Massachusetts and entered into negotiations with the U.S. Navy to build ships for the United States in order to aid the war effort. When the negotiations broke down, he built warships for the Union cause at his own expense and sold them to Congress.

Forbes continued his philanthropic work with several projects after the Jamestown voyage. In 1855, he established the Sailors' Snug Harbor, a Boston charitable organization for retired navalmen. In 1866, he founded the National Sailor's Home in Quincy, Massachusetts, for sailors who had been injured during the Civil War. Soon after a journey to Europe from 1867-1869, he began sending aid to France after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871.

His later years were spent in humanitarian work and writing. Most notable was his work building lifeboats and other lifesaving devices with the Humane Society of Massachusetts and the Naval Institute of the Boston Marine Society. In 1876, he published his memoirs entitled, Personal Reminiscences. He spent the remainder of his life at home in Milton, where he died on 23 November 1889.